I’ve written several times about a proposed IRS regulation that would force American banks to put foreign law above U.S. law. I’ve repeatedly warned that the scheme, which would force financial institutions to report the deposit interest they pay to foreigners, is bad economic policy, bad regulatory policy, and bad banking policy.

My arguments have included:

• Explaining that this onerous regulatory scheme will result in capital fleeing to other nations, needlessly harming the financial sector and putting American banks at risk.
• Explaining why the proposal is a threat to human rights since many foreigners keep money in the United States because they live in nations with unstable and/or repressive governments.
• Explaining that the IRS action is a gross abuse of the regulatory process since an executive branch agency does not have the authority to overturn laws enacted as part of the democratic process.
• Explaining that this proposed regulation is just the beginning, and that proponents hope to issue follow-up rules that would cripple policies making America a haven for global capital.

But these points don’t seem to matter to the Obama Administration, which is ideologically committed to the anti-tax competition agenda of Europe’s welfare states. This is why the White House supports all sorts of destructive policies, including not only this misguided regulation, but also the creation of something akin to a world tax organization that will have power to block free-market tax policy.

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Listening to the current debate on immigration within the Republican ranks, one would think that demons occupy either side. Proponents of amnesty or quasi-amnesty (or anything that could even marginally be construed as any form of amnesty) are targeted with insults challenging their conservative credentials and sense of justice. On the opposite extreme, hard-liners are labeled “haters”, “heartless”, and anti-immigration, their compassion questioned and grotesquely distorted.

Both of these extremes do great disservice to the party. Conservatives need to avoid painting caricatures of each other. These insults weaken the party, prevent reasoned debate, and offer Democrats potential talking points like Christmas presents wrapped with silver bows.

The immigration debate involves many principles worthy of serious discussion. The two most important—often exaggerated or underestimated by opponents and the media—are justice and compassion.

The principle of justice is intimately connection to the rule of law. Those who prioritize justice above all focus on the following question: Does a sovereign nation like the United States have the right to set immigration policy and, as a result, remove any and all breakers of immigration law, even if certain persons have lived in the United States for decades, have contributed to society, and attend church? Hardline conservatives answer with an impassioned and simple “yes”.

Many conservatives, on the other hand, believe that the primary concern in the immigration issue should be compassion. Presumably, many consider it immoral to deport whole swaths of people from their homes, especially those hardworking and otherwise moral people who have resided here for decades and who have contributed something important to society. Many undoubtedly are interested in garnering support specifically from the Latino community, hoping that the fastest growing minority voting bloc could be swayed by compassionate immigration policy.

The crucial point here is that for those whose number one priority is justice, compassion is not unimportant. Conversely, those who emphasize compassion generally do not dismiss the rule of law. It appears that Newt Gingrich, for example, seeks to prioritize both. Many hardline conservatives appeared crestfallen by their interpretation of his immigration policy, which equated a plea for compassion with amnesty. But Gingrich never suggested that compassion should trump justice—only that it should be a crucial consideration.

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The Nation reported yesterday that President Obama has dispatched the Department of Justice to investigate states that have enacted voter ID laws:

Career lawyers in the civil rights division of the Justice Department, who were frequently sidelined and overruled during the Bush Administration, are reasserting their authority and independence under Obama. They may be the only ones who can halt the GOP’s war on voting.

This is the same Department of Justice that abandoned the open-and-shut case against the New Black Panther Party for voter intimidation.

As whistleblower J. Christian Adams writes in his new book, Injustice: Exposing the Racial Agenda of the Obama Justice Department: “from the advent of the Obama administration in January 2009, it was clear resistance to the case went to the top of the Civil Rights Division and beyond.”

Two presidents, two administrations, two complaints. Who is right? Is the argument over voter rights enforcement merely a political battle that Americans are doomed to re-live with each change of government?

The debate goes deeper than partisanship. It is a clash between two different visions of civil rights and tolerance. One applies the same rules to all. The other imposes different moral and legal burdens according to race.

That double standard goes far beyond the Department of Justice. (more…)

Earlier this year, President Obama’s IRS proposed a regulation that would force banks in America to report any interest they pay to accounts owned by non-resident aliens (that’s the technical term for foreigners who don’t live in the U.S.).

What made this regulation so bizarre, however, is that Congress specifically has exempted these account from taxation for the rather obvious reason that they want to attract this mobile capital to the American economy. Indeed, Congress repeatedly has ratified this policy ever since it was first implemented 90 years ago.

So why, you may be asking, would the IRS propose such a regulation? After all, why impose a regulatory burden on a weakened banking sector when it has nothing to do with enforcing American tax law?

The answer, if you can believe it, is that they want American banks to help enforce foreign tax law. And the bureaucrats at the IRS want to impose this burden even though the regulation is completely contrary to existing U.S. law.

Not surprisingly, this rogue behavior by the IRS already has generated considerable opposition. Senator Rubio has been a leader on the issue, being the first to condemn the proposed regulation.

Both Senators from Texas also have announced their opposition, and the entire Florida congressional delegation came out against the IRS’s regulatory overreach.

And now we have two more important voices against the IRS’s rogue regulation.

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There hasn’t been much good economic news in recent years, but one bright spot for the economy is that the United States is a haven for foreign investors and this has helped attract more than $10 trillion to American capital markets according to Commerce Department data.

These funds are hugely important for the health of the U.S. financial sector and are a critical source of funds for new job creation and other forms of investment.

This is a credit to the competitiveness of American banks and other financial institutions, but we also should give credit to politicians. For more than 90 years, Congress has approved and maintained laws to attract investment from overseas. As a general rule, foreigners are not taxed on interest they earn in America. Moreover, by not requiring it to be reported to the IRS, lawmakers on Capitol Hill have effectively blocked foreign governments from taxing this U.S.-source income.

This is why it is so disappointing and frustrating that the Internal Revenue Service is creating grave risks for the American economy by pushing a regulation that would drive a significant slice of this foreign capital to other nations. More specifically, the IRS wants banks to report how much interest they pay foreign depositors so that this information can be forwarded to overseas tax authorities.

Yes, you read correctly.

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I’m not a big fan of the IRS, but usually I blame politicians for America’s corrupt, unfair, and punitive tax system. Sometimes, though, the tax bureaucrats run amok and earn their reputation as America’s most despised bureaucracy.

Here’s an example. Earlier this year, the Internal Revenue Service proposed a regulation that would force American banks to become deputy tax collectors for foreign governments. Specifically, they would be required to report any interest they pay to accounts held by nonresident aliens (a term used for foreigners who live abroad).

The IRS issued this proposal, even though Congress repeatedly has voted not to tax this income because of an understandable desire to attract job-creating capital to the U.S. economy. In other words, the IRS is acting like a rogue bureaucracy, seeking to overturn laws enacted through the democratic process.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The IRS’s interest-reporting regulation also threatens the stability of the American banking system, makes America less attractive for foreign investors, and weakens the human rights of people who live under corrupt and tyrannical governments.

This Center for Freedom and Prosperity video outlines five specific reason why the IRS regulation is bad news and should be withdrawn.

I’m not sure what upsets me most. As a believer in honest and lawful government, it is outrageous that the IRS is abusing the regulatory process to pursue an ideological agenda that is contrary to 90 years of congressional law.

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We’ve learned that Keynesianism does not make sense and that Obama’s so-called stimulus was misguided. In the final installment of this three-part series, let’s discuss the policies that actually would improve economic performance. As this video explains, both Economic Freedom of the World and the Index of Economic Freedom identify sound money, rule of law, property rights, small government, low tax rates, open markets, and laissez faire as the key conditions for prosperity.

The simple summary of the video is that economic liberalization and small government boost economic performance, not “jobs programs” or “stimulus packages.” But things are never as simple as they seem. Many Republicans, for instance, act as if any economic problem can be solved by cutting taxes. That’s a laundable instinct, to be sure, but fiscal policy only accounts for 20 percent of a nation’s economic performance and it is unreasonable to assume good tax policy can solve the problems caused by bad monetary policy or foolish regulatory interventions. Moreover, there is a big difference between good (supply-side) tax cuts that increase incentives for productive behavior and useless gimmicks such as tax credits and tax holidays. If Republicans want to rebuild their credibility on economic issues, they need to apologize for the reckless statism of the Bush years and rededicate themselves to shrinking the size and scope of the federal government.

According to the legendary Greek Historian Plutarch, when asked why he divorced his wife, Caesar stated that:  “All women shall be as Caesar would have his wife, not only free from sin, but from suspicion.”  At the time, Caesar’s wife, Pompeia, was loosely associated with the commission of a sacrilege by someone else.  As recent events have confirmed, Attorney General Jerry Brown is hardly burdened by suspicions – let alone high ethical standards.

As most everyone in the political world now knows, ACORN is under investigation in many states, and by the federal government, for a host of crimes.  The same holds true in California – or does it?

Notwithstanding the purported investigation of ACORN by the California Attorney General’s Office, according to David Lagstein, ACORN’s chief organizer in the San Diego:  the Attorney General Jerry Brown is a “political animal” and that “certainly every bit of communication we have had with them has suggested that the fault will be found with the people that did the video — not with ACORN.”

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